After being arrested, an American woman revealed to police officers that she had hidden a fully-loaded handgun in her vagina.

It was never a good idea to begin with, but Ashley Castaneda, 31, only realised that she had made a terrible mistake as she was taken to jail for drug possession.

Castaneda and the man she was travelling with, Gabriel Garcia, 30, were asked to pull over after committing a traffic violation in North Waco, Texas, US. Police officers seized a total of 32.6g of methamphetamine​ from them —​ of which 2.7g were concealed under the driver's seat and the remaining 29.9g were stashed in Castaneda's purse —​ KWTX reported.

En route to jail, Castaneda alerted officers to the weapon that she had concealed in her vagina as she was afraid that it might go off.

"Officers immediately stopped and a female officer searched Castaneda discovering she had in fact placed a loaded Smith and Wesson pistol inside her body cavity," said the police in a statement.